


little things, colossal wonders (the ink demonth 2020)

by tinysmallest



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Found Family, Gen, ocs do exist yes but they're not THE focus of any of these, shawn's feelings are not unrequited but he's unaware of that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 19,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25662445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinysmallest/pseuds/tinysmallest
Summary: WHO'S READY FOR THE INK DEMONTH 2020 I SURE TOTALLY AM YUP THAT'S WHY THIS IS GOING UP ON TIME YESSIRREEThis year I'm doing writing prompts instead of drawing. Enjoy the misadventures of the characters of this specific au of Bendy and the Ink Machine where the toons are real people! Likely to bounce all over the timeline and feature a variety of characters both human and toon.
Relationships: Alice Angel & Bertrum Piedmont, Alice Angel & Henry Stein, Allison Angel & OC, Bendy & Bertrum Piedmont, Bendy & Henry Stein, Bendy & Sammy Lawrence, Boris & Bertrum Piedmont, Boris & Henry Stein, Jack Fain & Sammy Lawrence, Joey Drew & Henry Stein, Joey Drew & Sammy Lawrence, Joey Drew & Sammy Lawrence & Henry Stein, Shawn Flynn/Wally Franks, Susie Campbell & Allison Pendle, Thomas Connor & Wally Franks, Thomas Connor & Wally Franks & Allison Pendle, Thomas Connor/Allison Pendle
Comments: 47
Kudos: 39





	1. cake [Henry and Alice]

**Author's Note:**

> Usually I try to avoid using the prompt by name in the drabble at all but since there's not really a way to write about cake without talking about... _cake_ I had to forgo that and just make the cake the vehicle for which something else is explored.

Birthdays were a big deal.

Most people would agree with that but Henry felt something especially... _emotional_ about birthdays he wasn't sure was normal for other people. There was something about the gesture of celebration for another year of life that was special. Big. Important. Something that deserved attention and very particular care and attention to detail.

He remembered, once, his mother teaching him how to wrap presents- his father's birthday was the next morning and she'd only found the gift she'd wanted for him that day, or something like that. He'd come to see what she was doing in her garden shed so late at night and found her wrapping, and rather than shoo him to bed she smiled at him and asked if he wanted to do a big boy thing, but he'd have to keep a secret.

There were precious few memories of such moments left but he did remember the conspiratorial whispers, the feeling of the heavy paper against his little hands, and the fact that her eyes had been twinkling more than he remembered an image of that fact. She put him back to bed and kissed him goodnight after that.

In hindsight he was pretty sure he'd done an awful job but she didn't say anything about it.

Remembering that incident made the specific emotion he attached to birthdays feel ever more right. Birthdays were _important._ They celebrated lives- another year here, together, with the people you loved, growing and learning. Birthdays _were_ love.

Everything had to be perfect.

It was with this thought that he rolled up his sleeves to bake his first cake.

Bendy's first birthday after the studio, after everything, was even bigger and more important to acknowledge than any year before, but they were drowning in poverty. Henry was a poor mechanic who made just enough money to live now suddenly with three more mouths to feed and the results were predictably disastrous despite his best efforts. Bendy's birthday passed with Henry out of the house from the crack of dawn until long after the sun had set, their only time for celebration the span of a couple hours after he returned home, where they ate rice for dinner and a tiny cake Henry bought on the way home that he couldn't afford but decided he could eat a little less in the coming days so he could provide it anyway.

But now, the following year, with the toons out in the open and their stage show so wildly successful, it was time to make up for that. For all the years Ben suffered alone in that nightmarish hellscape. For the years before that, as Joey shifted from the fun-loving, goofy caretaker to the monstrous puppetmaster they all knew him to be now.

He could buy a cake. A good cake. He could have his pick of any bakery in Spectrum City, even the fancy ones.

But none of those were good enough.

Henry was going to _make_ Bendy a cake this year.

He kept the cookbook propped open against the wall as he surveyed the ingredients. Dark chocolate, check. Unsalted butter, check. Cocoa powder, milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, cake flower, sugar. Whipping cream. Check, check, infinite checks.

He grabbed the cutting board and laid the block of chocolate on it as he began to dice. It was a little more difficult than dicing vegetables, but not so much. He poured the diced chocolate into a bowl, which he set in a pot of near-boiling water and dumped the butter in after.

It didn't take long to melt but he still found himself watching anxiously. _Calm down Henry. It's going to melt. That's how heat works._

Once it was becoming goop he went to stir it and froze.

For a moment the rich, dark brown was the void-black of Ink.

It wasn't until he heard the clatter of the wooden spoon hitting the tiles that he realized he'd dropped it. With a huff of derision he bent down and picked it up, knees screaming at him--that's what he got for spending so much time on his knees yesterday in the garden--and hesitating despite himself before turning lifting his head to look at the glass bowl.

Dark brown. Not black. Not Ink.

He sighed and went to stir before stopping. No, he dropped this on the floor. He had to wash it first. Shit. The chocolate needed to be stirred. If he left it any longer it'd melt unevenly or burn-

He cut the voice in his head off by lifting the bowl from the water. Shit. Shit shit shit. The recipe didn't say what to do if you were an idiot and dropped a spoon and-

He had other spoons.

Cursing himself quiet liberally now, careful to keep his voice quiet, he threw the spoon in the sink and grabbed another from the drawer, setting the bowl back and giving it a good stirring. The lumps smoothed themselves out soon enough. He was lucky he had more than one wooden spoon.

 _I've cooked a whole Christmas dinner but I'm all wigged out by one little cake?_ he groaned to himself as he pulled the bowl off to dump the cocoa powder in.

_Well I was just as wigged out by the Christmas dinner. And Thanksgiving before it. And-_

_Ohmygodpleasestop._

He picked up his whisk and stirred the powder into the chocolate. Ben. Ben was the focus of today. Take it off of yourself. Think of your son.

_Think of how absolutely fuck wild he's gonna be once he consumes this cake. Oh dear god this is so much chocolate._

The image of his face when he bit into this fudge was enough to make him snicker. Okay, we might need an exorcist, but at least it's gonna be funny before then.

He poured the milk in. Resumed stirring.

Ben should stay occupied with his siblings and friends until this got done. He hoped. Bendy was nothing if not the kind of person to upend any and all plans he came into contact with, knowingly or unknowingly. Alice and Boris were tasked with keeping him busy all day and he grinned at knowing what lengths they might've resorted to in order to keep his attention without attracting his suspicion. As long as it didn't involve property damage, it was all good.

But it'd probably involve pie. A lot of lemon meringue. Maybe a few dares and taunts. Definitely some very loud sound effects. Henry imagined if they ventured into non-toon areas that the humans would send him complaints about bike horns and car honks. Some would be about the noise. Others would be about what the noises meant.

Eggs. He set the whisk down and grabbed the carton of eggs, moving to another bowl and getting out the item that would help him separate the whites from the yolks. He set it up and cracked an egg into it, watching the whites drip through.

Hah. As if the fact that the language was censored via the noises meant nothing. Some people just lived to clutch their pearls. It was always the ones who didn't know how to have fun once in awhile.

But today was all about Bendy's fun, and Henry would have a few, choice, uncensored words if anyone actually ruined that, thank you very much.

Yolks and whites separated. He added the required amounts of sugar and vanilla extract into the bowl with the yolks and dumped them all into the chocolate batter, attacking it with his whisk.

It was too quiet. He pulled out his phone, dialed the volume up, picked music. "Nobody's home to bother with it," he said. His voice sounded strange in the empty kitchen, and maybe a bit uncomfortable, but he wasn't alone. "Well, I'm alone right now, but I'm not alone-alone."

Not anymore.

He returned to the whisk.

"This is good. This is going well. It's going to go just fine, and he's going to love it. I picked out red striped candles and I'm going to have to restrain myself from adding thirty of them as a joke because I don't know exactly what's going on with his aging but he's definitely not thirty and I don't want to waste all those candles even if watching him pout would be funny."

Silence.

"Also it means we'd have to pick them off the cake before anybody got any and that part wouldn't be very fun."

He'd stirred this long enough, right? Probably. He looked at the cookbook and felt a trill of panic run through him. Where was he again-!

Oh, right, there. "Cake flour."

Cake flour added, shaken through the strainer. "To get lumps out," Henry guessed as he scraped the bottom of the strainer with a clean spatula. He stirred the flour in.

"Okay. Egg whites next," he said as he grabbed the mixer. There was going to be so much shit to clean up. This wasn't even counting his birthday dinner-

Oh wait they were going out to eat for that. "Wonder what place he picked," he murmured as he turned the whisk on, watching the egg whites turn from clear to a sort of... yellow with bubbles in it.

"Is... is that right?"

_You have no idea what you're doing. You're never going to make it as magical as you should; you never did, not with any of them, not with Harry or Sammy or Joey or the toons before Joey kicked-_

"Shut up," he mumbled as he set the mixer down carefully near the sink and consulted the book so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. Okay. That was right. He added the sugar next.

The rest of this process was something of autopilot. Add some sugar, mixer. Add sugar, mixer. He stopped when all the sugar was added and the egg whites now looked like light and fluffy icing, which was the point of this whole thing.

He almost said 'I did it' and stopped. No, that was just asking for something to go wrong. Reel that thought in until later, when he was actually done.

He scooped the meringue into the bowl in two installments and mixed them carefully in. "There's something kind of nice in mixing. Something... methodical. Comforting. I kind of like this," he mused as he poured the batter into the paper-lined baking tin. "I'll like it more once I know I'm doing this right, though."

Oh no, now there was nothing to do but wait until it was done, huh. He set three timers before he was anywhere near satisfied and left the kitchen.

This was the worst part, he decided later when he dropped the pen he was doodling aimlessly with and ran for the oven. He discovered that was wrong when he realized he had yet more waiting to do, because it needed to be cooled and then chilled.

He checked his phone after putting the cake in the refrigerator. Still no texts. Was that a good thing? "Both of them would text me if something went wrong. One of them would remember- oh but if they've resorted to pie throwing maybe not..." Meringue and electronics didn't mix well.

Meringue. Mix. Hah.

He returned to the living room to doodle after setting another timer for twenty minutes. That should be long enough right?

It took way longer for this step than he would've liked but once it was done the last part was mercifully simple. Just take the last of the chocolate, melt it in a glass container with some whipping cream in the microwave, and pour it over.

His phone buzzed. His heart nearly leapt out of his throat as he pawed for it, nearly dropped the glass.

It was Alice.

_I'd like to inform you Bendy is no longer the Great Pie Conqueror._

Henry snorted so hard he almost choked as his heart settled. He poured the chocolate over the cake as he typed with one thumb.

_Will a cake console the dear general?_

_He may be too far gone. Give it to me instead. c:_

_Absolutely not, angel. :I_

_Worth a try._

_It's not like you won't get some! That's how birthdays work._

_This is true. But if your baking is half as good as your cooking, can you really blame me for wanting the whole thing?_

His face went hot. _You flatter me. ^^;_

_You know me. I don't like liars._

A memory so sharp in its intensity it could cut him in two almost split the happy scene, but the phone buzzing against his hand pulled him back.

_Also we're on our way home so soon I get to tell you in person over and over, until you die._

It took a moment before he realized the weak chuckle in the room was his. _No fair. That's going to turn into a three v one and you know it._

_Then I suppose you'll just have to admit defeat, won't you. :p_

_You're lucky I can't pull magic pies from nowhere._

_Pieing me for speaking truth! I thought fathers were supposed to set a good example!  
Oh the humanity!   
Won't someone please think of the children!_

_Okay okay, stop buzzing my phone repeatedly you devil in disguise. Come get a taste of this cake._

_I just want to say first: Thank you. For all of this._

Henry paused.

_I mean it. It means a lot to us. It means a lot to him already, and he doesn't even know you spent the last several hours personally baking his cake for him._  
_Even if this cake is a total disaster, it's going to mean the world to him. To us._  
_Thank you, Daddy._

He bit his lip, tapped his foot against the floor, and glanced away. Shaking thumbs returned a message, the only thing rattling around in his head.

_I love you._

Maybe perfect wasn’t in the outcome of the cake, after all.

Phone buzz. He checked it through the blur of his tears.

_Also we’re covered in pie goo who wants a hug._

_... You know what I change my mind I’m eating this whole cake myself._


	2. memory [Sammy]

Sometimes, he could almost grasp them.

There were... small fragments. Pictures, sounds. Sometimes he thought he could recall what heat felt like when it didn't come from a stove, and he would stare in confusion at the gas fire atop the appliance, trying to place where he could have possibly felt that before.

Some distant part of him tried to feed him that information, tried to tell him, but was drowned beneath the fog and haze of the empty void in his head. His body was ink. Maybe the inside of his mind was too.

Maybe his very soul was.

His days were busy enough. There were always things to gather, supplies that were needed. He would tiptoe among the wreckage of the world he sometimes knew was the only one he'd ever known and sometimes knew was absolutely not that, and try to find food, medical supplies, and anything to make his little hovel even the slightest bit more inviting.

They weren't necessary, but he hoarded instruments. Anytime he found one in the twisted maze that was his prison, he would pick it up and bring it back. He didn't need them. He had his banjo. But there was a tug he couldn't shake, a pull he couldn't deny, to return them to his floor. The music department. Sure, that was undoubtedly where they'd come from, but it was more than a simple desire to return things where they belonged.

Even if it was, that alone would be cause for question. Why bother returning instruments to the music place when there were more important things to gather?

And yet he did it, and he stored them in applicable places. Sometimes he would sit in the band room and try to understand why it filled him with such melancholy.

When he felt himself begin to spiral like that, there was a comforting familiarity in cooking. Yet another thing couldn't put his finger on as to why. But, like instruments stored in their cases in their closets and the band room having specific instruments in it, it felt right. Sometimes The Ink Demon would wander in to find him staring into a pot of bubbling ink because, in a moment of sheer panic, putting something on to boil was a bandage and a shot of morphine to his shattered psyche.

It was at this point that his lord would gently take the pot off the stove and usher him to bed, and he would obey. The Ink Demon had never steered him wrong before.

But sometimes, just sometimes, something would tickle the back of his mind, rest on the tip of his tongue. Sometimes, allowing himself to be led felt... wrong. In the same way that cooking felt right. He should be balking. He should be hesitant. Firmly refusing.

Plucking the banjo, feeling its chords resonate in his soul, he just wish he understood it.

Any of it.

If he could just get his real body back, the body he knew he was supposed to have, maybe-

Maybe he finally would.


	3. work [Thomas]

Thomas was a firm believer that a hardworking man was a happy man. Whether hobby or career, it didn't matter; as long as a man had something to do that he could really dig his hands into, he could never truly feel purposeless in the world.

Joey Drew was trying that belief sorely. Thomas could almost swear on purpose.

When he'd signed the contract to work here he had no idea exactly what he was signing onto. That was pretty much everyone who worked here, but back when he'd thought the extent of that was magical talking beings accidentally brought to life straight from the fictional world they'd been created to fit, he figured he could deal. Reality was reality, and he wasn't so far down to earth that he was subterranean. Things wouldn't go away just because he stuck his head in the sand.

He missed the days where the most he was asked to put up with was some obnoxious giggling and maybe a prank or two. Unlike Sammy he wasn't the subject of many of those. Probably because his job was vital to the integral structure of the building.

Now he was being asked--softly demanded, really--to accept pipes that burst at the drop of a hat, a heavy misery that settled over the building like a dense fog, and an unpredictable boss.

 _Work hard; work happy_ his ass. Everyone else hated those patronizing posters as much as he did; they had to. He'd caught Bendy staring at one once from the side of the dusty pool table that had once seen much use, and while he was unsure what the look on his face meant, he could read the room well enough to gather it wasn't a happy one.

No matter how much Bendy blustered about nothing being wrong.

It was a pretty open secret he had some intense depression going on and Thomas, though he had no children of his own yet, was fairly sure the reason was a lack of play in his life. Kids needed time to spend with the people they looked up to and with their peers, and these days it seemed Bendy was in short supply when it came to getting time for either. Boris and Alice were always off aiding someone else in sore need of a hand, and none of the older humans they'd once spent time with had the time to spend with them anymore. It was all being eaten up by the studio. Thomas watched many sunny, happy faces become wan and pale, sickly and sad. Bright eyes turned dull.

It was an open secret that nigh near everyone had some intense depression going on.

"They spend a lot of time with me," Sammy said once when Thomas hailed him down in the hall. "I give them things to do. Paper to draw on, coloring books to color, board games to play. Sometimes I can play too, even though I lose because I can't afford to pay attention until it's my turn."

Thomas blinked in surprise. "You?" 

He had a hard time picturing Sammy playing a board game, let alone with the silly, high-energy toons. Hell, he had a hard time picturing them in Sammy's office at all without some kind of tiny Armageddon being unleashed. How many times in his years here had he heard Sammy shrieking Bendy's name because the little devil went and clipped all his paperclips together, or put something weird and slimy in his desk, or a bucket of water above the door?

And yet, here was Sammy, staring at him with a blank face like stone for suggesting that he would take some time out of his outrageous schedule to indulge them.

"Yes."

"Sammy!" Joey's call broke whatever silent attempt at communication went on between them. Sammy's gaze lingered a moment, but he soon broke eye contact, turned and left.

But now Thomas was intrigued.

Three hours later, he wandered into the break room to find Sammy, in the apron that hung in the break room closet that Joey--and once upon a time, Henry--wouldn't allow anyone to question or throw out--stirring a pot of sauce, turning his head to check on a pot that had been put on to boil.

Nobody ventured into this break room at this time of day. Thomas was beginning to guess why it was hard to find the composer in his office during the same general time of day.

Sammy cooked the pasta and set the table, Thomas taking a few steps back to watch as he cleaned up and hung the apron up in the closet again. Taking the time to make one last check of the room, Sammy nodded to himself and left out the other door.

Ten minutes later the toons came in for dinner and though Thomas knew he should really be making the rounds again to ensure the pipes were fine, he didn't move an inch.

"Oh thank god it's spaghetti," Bendy sighed. He grabbed a couple of books--left nearby on a chair--and placed them on one of the chairs by the table, climbing up to sit on them.

"I was hoping it would be." Boris all but collapsed into his seat, voice criminally small. Thomas frowned.

Alice didn't speak at all. She just sat down and served herself some food before pushing it Boris's way.

Thomas watched them eat in silence for a minute before slipping away, but still found himself turning his head to glance back at the break room, the gears in his head whirring at high speed.

He collided with something solid and stumbled, cursing as quietly as he could manage as he righted himself and looked to see what he'd run into.

Norman was watching with a tired look.

Their eyes met. Norman's head turned to look down the hall at the break room, a loose knot of something like sadness in his forehead.

Then turned around and walked away. Thomas watched him go, wondering if he knew who was responsible at least half the time--probably more, knowing Joey--for feeding the toons. Wondering if Norman saw the dark shadows and the bags that got worse under Sammy's eyes every day. Under everyone's eyes every day.

Wondering how much, exactly, Norman knew.

Thomas thought himself observant. He was realizing he actually knew painfully little about what was happening here.

He did know one thing for sure.

_This place is killing us._


	4. denial [Sammy, Alice, Allison, Boris, Bendy, Joey]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be every named character except for the Dreams Come True crew and BATDR but I slept two hours last night and I am very sick so uh. No.

"You are fine."

Sammy said it to himself every morning, exhausted, dull green eyes staring back at him from the mirror. There should be a fire. There were only ashes.

"You are _fine._ Everything is going to be okay."

Sometimes at work he left his office for a few minutes, inbetween the ink spills and visits from the toons and arguing with various band members and trying to shake sense into Joey, and he splashed water on his face in the bathroom to cool his hot face, the burning sneaking its way behind his eyes. He stared at the reflection he barely recognized anymore, and he spoke to him, one hand tugging on his hair.

"You are fine. Things are fine. _You_ are fine."

And he tried not to think about the warm, gentle hand that used to clasp his shoulder, draw him into a hug, and ask him what was wrong, or the sweet lilting giggle and the much daintier hand that liked to find his to drag him on some misadventure in the middle of work hours.

_"You are fine."_

He found himself staring at long strands of blonde hair in shaking fingers, and wondered when the hell that happened.

* * *

"He wouldn't really just... change me?"

The softness of the bed beneath her back wasn't registering. Everything felt far away. Thinking was like slogging through mud- or what Alice remembered of the experience from the other world, anyway.

He wouldn't. He wouldn't just somehow- how would he even do it? Would it just change her appearance? Or everything about her? What would it feel like, to just- suddenly not exist? To have every facet of your personality remade into something you weren't?

"Joey wouldn't- he wouldn't-"

* * *

"I've gotten my big break, and things are going to work out."

The words fell so easily from Allison's mouth. Why shouldn't they? It was the truth. She'd dreamed of this moment for ages, years, an entire childhood of worries and broken promises and despite the wreckage of her parents' marriage trying its best to bury her. She was going to make her aunt so, so proud.

But then she'd pass Susie in the halls, and brown eyes would meet blue, the empty suddenly filled with blazing fury. Susie would turn and walk right back the way she came, and all Allison could do was find Thomas and tell him, when he grumbled yet again that this place was a nightmare, "I've gotten my big break. It'll all work out."

She needed to believe that.

She needed to believe some good would come out of this.

Everything was for a reason, right?

* * *

Boris smiled at the storyboard artist he handed the stack of papers off to. She looked at him with tired crankiness that made his fur puff a bit, and he gave her a quiet, hasty goodbye and left, tugging at a glove as he nibbled the inside of his lip.

This was ill-advised with fangs. He was soon bleeding and barely noticed the taste of ink.

Had he done everything on the list of things Joey asked him? Struck by a sudden squirming of his stomach, he pulled the list out again, ignoring the penciled checkmarks he'd already drawn there, ticking each item off again.

If he just did his work and did it well enough, Joey wouldn't be so mad anymore. They could be a family again. He just had to get something right for once in his life.

* * *

"He can't leave me in here forever."

The tremulous whisper barely registered to even its owner.

"He won't leave me forever. He'll let me out. I didn't mean to. I told- I told 'im that and he knows it and any minute he'll let me out and I can go find Bo and Al and- and it'll be okay. He won't leave me here."

The crosses on the wall of the closet mocked him.

* * *

Joey's magic settled around the room, the golden sparkles fading, the glow dimming. He let out a slow, deep breath, staring at the blob of ink as his tokens came to rest on the desk in front of him.

It was different, yes. What had once been a shapeless mass now had horns. Excellent progress! He gathered the tokens and set them in their places in his desk.

This would work. He wouldn't lose the studio. He wouldn't lose his dream.

They were going to _love_ this.


	5. bendy royale [Sammy and Bendy]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to get creative with this one.

The clouds were so thick and heavy that Bendy thought for a minute upon waking up that it was early morning and prepared to roll over and go back to bed, but a cursory glance at his phone scolded him in big numbers that told him it was, in fact, noon.

With a grumble he slid out of bed and shuffled downstairs, and he was halfway through making himself grilled cheese before he noticed them.

On the back deck, leaning in to look through the back door, were snowmen. A small army of snowmen. One beckoned him outside with the positioning of its stick arms, pointing him in the direction he should go.

Huh. Well this was a development all right. One of his siblings was responsible for this.

He chuckled as he finished his food. Well, might as well see which one, right?

The little devil ate, dressed, and ventured out to see where the path would lead him, taking a moment now and again to push the hem of his hat back out of his eyes. Large flakes fell softly and slowly, a picturesque snowy forest welcoming him in with a handful of waving snowmen.

Briefly he thought about Snow Sillies and gave one of the snowmen an affectionate pat before following deeper into the forest, taking a moment to appreciate the quiet stillness of the snowy woods. 

Bendy wasn't a quiet person. He didn't particularly revel in silence, and he was easily bored. He liked being the center of attention, and he liked doing ridiculous things to that end. But he would be lying if he said that living nearly thirty years in a hole underground didn't leave him with an appreciation for weather, for the soft, still moments nature offered sometimes. The beach waves during summer, the crunch of leaves in fall, the petal blizzards of spring.

And the quiet snowfall of winter.

He sighed, watching the winter air take his breath upwards in a plume of hot breath.

And then suddenly he shrieked as a ton of snow fell from above, some of it sliding its icy fingers down his back as some snow leaked its way through the gap between his coat and where his neck would have been if he had one.

As he hopped around and tried to shake the snow off, he became of-

Was that- was someone _laughing?_

He came to a stop and shielded his eyes with a hand- yes, that was someone in the tree above him, one arm securing himself against the trunk and the other hand gripping the branch he sat on.

Sammy's eyes, squinted with laughter, looked back at him.

"I got you!" he found the air to crow, letting go of the tree trunk. Almost immediately he began to pitch backwards but the mad scramble for the trunk saved him and immediately his giggles began to overtake him again.

Minor heart attack over with, Bendy's grin reclaimed his face.

_He's smiling. He's **laughing!**_

He forced his grin into something of a pout as Sammy gained control of himself enough to climb down.

"I got you," he grinned as soon as he was at the bottom, faced with Bendy tapping his foot.

"You do realize this means war," Bendy returned.

"Of course," Sammy agreed, and Bendy missed the snowball until it hit him in the face. He screamed again in outrage and delight, feeling the wind of Sammy running by him as he swiped the snow off his face.

"Just know I play to win!" his uncle called to him from up ahead, shit-eating grin plastered all over his face.


	6. instrument [Sammy and Jack]

Everyone knew that as long as you treated them right, anything from the music room was fair game. Violins, cellos, flutes, whatever. Sammy didn't even especially seem to care if you had no business with one of his charges owing to not being in the band. As long as you were careful and not taking something that couldn't be done without, anything was yours to borrow.

Except one.

Jack often pondered about why Sammy was so darn careful with the old banjo. It was the oldest one of the bunch- not just of the strings, but of anything the band department owned. Even being lovingly cared for didn't hide that fact, though it did certainly make the banjo sing as well as any of the rest. Still, it also made it confusing when Sammy snapped at anyone who handled it clumsily.

He never kept it in one of the band room closets with the others, either. It was always in his office, and if it was not in the office's closet it was in his hands, usually being tuned or cleaned. It was a common thing to see secured on his back when walking around, beating out a guitar by a few hairs.

"Is it your personal banjo?" He asked Sammy one day while troubleshooting a song that called for a banjo.

"Mmhm."

"The guitar?" He noted that had made a home for itself in the room recently, too.

"Yup."

And he offered up nothing more.

There was a mystery solved--and not one that really needed solving but hey, a little fun now and again wasn't a crime--but it still left one more. Sammy wasn't as tender with the guitar as the banjo. It was tempting to pick it up to look at it sometime when Sammy was out of the room, but Sammy didn't like people touching it. Maybe if he liked you he'd let you play it if you asked, but Jack didn't really want to examine it right in front of him. And it wasn't right to look at it when he wasn't here to protest. Sammy might not never know, but Jack sure would.

So Jack watched Sammy play his banjo to sound out their problem, and wondered if he'd ever know.

* * *

The depths gurgled, the wooden structure of the building groaning. Its body, little more than goop in the halfway-shape of a human, sludged along like a slug.

This one was blessed with slightly more awareness than many other Searchers, and maybe that was why the peculiar Lost One didn't run when it approached. He tilted his head instead, his glowing gold eye watching the Searcher venture around the room, picking up objects and looking at them from time to time. He wondered what he was looking for.

It stopped behind him, and he half twisted his body around to watch it paw at his banjo. Despite all odds he found himself smiling, and he slipped it over his head.

"Did you want to look at this? I-"

He realized very suddenly he did not want that.

"... I'll let you look at it, but don't take," he said finally, kneeling to let the Searcher... well, search. It wasn't every day he met one this friendly. The Swellers were the only ones he knew of who were, and they mostly just stayed in one spot and made noises; passive wasn't exactly friendly. He could encourage this. Maybe it would help the Searcher become a Lost One. Like him.

Forever looking, and not sure for what. At least being Lost would afford it the awareness to know it was lost, and not just hungry.

The Searcher patted it a little, thankfully not leaving inky handprints behind.

"It's mine," he said. He didn't know how he knew it. He just did. "Our Lord's song led me to it when I first emerged, you know. It must have been mine. Maybe it was made for me."

The Searcher stared at him. Ah, right. It couldn't understand him yet, probably. Maybe someday. Maybe someday soon, if it was already this aware, if it was looking right at him when he spoke.

He flipped it over to let it look at the other side.

The Searcher had been doing little more than lightly slapping at it with his hands, but this time it paused and very slowly, very deliberately, traced the carved letters.

_SL,_

_A song so loud they can't quell it; a fire too bright to snuff out._  
_Keep singing. Happy fifteenth._

_Love,_

_HSD & JD_

"It's nice, isn't it. I wonder if I'll ever know what it means."


	7. chilling [Boomer, the og safehouse Boris]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boomer has been featured in an art or two of mine; he's the Boris who owned the Safehouse originally, before the original Boris gets there in Chapter 2.

The depths were always freezing.

One of the biggest miseries of this world was the pervading cold. The wolf knew that well- even his thick fluff didn't protect him from it completely. He figured he was better off than most things down here- maybe the Searchers weren't that bothered by it, but the Lost Ones seemed to feel it keenly. Even the Butcher Gang seemed to feel it, judging by the huddled bodies near burning bins.

The worst part was by far the fear of accidentally setting fires in the quest for warmth. They lived in a giant tinderbox. One careless mistake would kill everyone. He didn't know if whatever entity ruled this place was capable of snuffing such a catastrophe out- if one even existed at all.

The Ink Demon was the closest thing to a god, but all it seemed to know was rage. The wolf was fairly sure it would light reality itself on fire if it could. It was largely regarded as a mindless beast, but he wasn't quite as sure.

Hunger required no real awareness, but _rage?_ Anger was another story.

Regardless, there was reason enough to stay well out of its way, and he was happy to oblige. He had enough things to attend to anyway, like his own quest for warmth.

Finding the safehouse was a miracle he was grateful for every single second he lived. Several rooms, a bathroom full of sinks, a _stove?_ It was the best thing that ever happened to him.

Every once in awhile he considered attempting communication with the Butchers he saw about, especially when he came across one or more hanging around burning bins. Surely one of them, out of the dozens and dozens of copies, must be sentient?

Surely one of them must feel something besides hunger, if they could also feel cold?

So he tried, from time to time, always near a Miracle Station. Sometimes with various amounts of supplies depending on how far he was into the day's search for things to use. And, always, he was sent scrambling for the locker whose spell would protect him from whatever these things were made of until they forgot he was there and moved on in search of someone else to rip apart.

Why Miracle Stations protected him and not Butchers, he wasn't sure. Sometimes he wondered what was different about the make-up of their magic, what set them apart. Most of the time he was just grateful for a safe place to hide while also struggling to swallow back the looming panic attack at nearly being killed again.

But, other times, when he laid in his hammock after checking off the day's checklist, and all was quiet except for the drip of ink and his own breathing, he had to quell a shiver in his soul that had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the understanding that he could have emerged like one of them.


	8. soup [Henry, Joey, Sammy, Boris]

"Hi sweetie."

Henry rolled over in bed, weary eyes staring out from his bed at the woman in his doorway. She smiled at him, crossing the room and sitting beside him, a hand checking his forehead.

"I brought you something. You should eat." He sat up, reluctantly, watching her with heavy lids as she helped him hold the bowl. "Chicken noodle. It's good for you; it'll help."

"Really?" His little voice was smaller with exhaustion, smothered by sickness. His dog on the floor whined, and he let go of the bowl with one hand to rub his head.

He stalled for a few minutes, then picked up the spoon and began to eat. When he was done, she helped him lay down and tucked him in, kissing his forehead as consciousness slipped away.

A day later he felt better. Mama really did know best, didn't she?

* * *

"I got you something?"

Joey sat up, rubbing his eyes as Henry stepped into the room. "Chicken noodle," he soothed as he came to sit with his shivering friend. Joey gave him a silent look of misery and confusion that was hazed by the overwhelming desire to not be awake right now but the impossibility of achieving what he was after.

"It's chicken noodle," Henry soothed, smoothing back some of his sweaty hair. "It'll help. I can hold it for you if you want?"

Joey whimpered a noise of discontent, but picked up the spoon nonetheless and began to eat with the mechanicalness of someone eating for necessity and not for any amount of enjoyment. Henry watched and picked up the spoon to help him with the last fourth of the bowl, Joey sighing in relief when it was done. Henry took the bowl and helped him lay down, picking up the blanket and tucking it around him. He found the glasses Joey had shoved off the end table somehow and placed them back on the endtable within easy reach, patted his head, and left.

Two days later he got a great big hug from the best friend who could walk for the first time in almost a week, and it felt like being on cloud nine.

* * *

"Hey, Sam-a-lamb."

A loud whine ripped through the room, Henry walking by him to turn on the lamp. The soft light touched the room, dark blue with evening, with quiet shades of yellow-white. Sammy clearly wanted none of this, because he rolled over and drew the duvet over his head.

"I know," he murmured, making a guess at where Sammy's head was and rubbing it. He felt him lean into his hand. "But you need to eat. This'll help."

"Why?" came the mumble.

"It's good for you. It'll help with the fever. C'mon buddy; up you get." He stroked his head again. "It'll only be a few minutes."

"Mmmmmmmmm." A sigh. The disheveled head of blonde hair emerged from the warm cocoon with a less than enthused face. Henry sat next to him, passing him the bowl. As shaky hands slowly consumed the meal, Henry reached for his hair, separating it into three main clumps and beginning to braid it.

One braid and empty bowl later, and Henry was tucking Sammy back into bed, smiling as Sammy's eyes finally slid shut.

* * *

"Boris?"

The wolf was jolted from the unpleasant, uncomfortable half-dozing he was lying in with a gasp, startled by the world returning to clarity so quickly.

Had someone spoken?

"Hey." The voice was much quieter this time, but it still made him flinch.

He sat up as Sammy approached with a steaming bowl. "You need to eat. I made you something."

Boris looked into the offered dish and nearly cried at the sight of the broth and noodles. "O-oh- thank yo-"

"There's no need to thank me. It's what you needed." Sammy patted his back as he accepted the food.

 _You have no idea how true that is,_ Boris thought.

But not about the meal alone.


	9. mirror [Sammy]

The hardest part about living in this house was knowing he didn't deserve it. Hating every second he breathed because he didn't deserve it. Being unable to look those warm, gentle eyes, or the worried, anxious ones, because he knew he didn't deserve it.

And yet being stuck with it anyway because he also knew anything else was impossible. Henry knew he was alive. And so Henry would take care of him. That was Henry's way- to waste all kinds of ridiculous amounts of effort on people who didn't deserve it, because he was literally too kind to do anything less. Given their history this was only multiplied by about a million. To ask anything less of him, to ask he accept Sammy vanishing from their lives like the ghost he'd been before the discovery he still lived, was about as possible and as painful as asking Henry to rip out his own guts. He couldn't, wouldn't, and shouldn't do it. It would kill him.

Sammy knew that if he disappeared, Henry would never rest until he found him, and if he ended his own existence...

Well, he'd traumatized them all enough with what went on in the depths of the twisted studio.

He'd died in his twenties. Some might argue the death part was debatable. Sammy didn't really know what else to call his very body turning to goop. The fact that magic constructed a new one or maybe shuffled the old one around or some weird nonsense didn't change the fact that it had happened at all.

Sometimes he remembered everything about his life more than others. Sometimes everything was more... fragments. Pieces. Or fogged. Did he have blonde hair or brown? What was his name again? Sometimes things were much clearer, and usually it was the things he’d rather forget that surfaced when the pool of his memory was still and clear.

The first time he saw his reflection after clawing his way out of that awful place was in a store window. He caught just the smallest glimpse and never went near one again unless after dark. It didn’t match what he recalled at the time being him. He didn’t want to know how faulty his memory was actually being, nor did he want to know how awful he was sure to look.

But the first time he was well enough under Henry's roof to move, some gut-deep part of his body reached deep into muscle memory, flicked a switch, and autopiloted his body into the bathroom.

Light. Door. Shirt off. Turn on faucet. Splash face. Look up.

_Freeze._

The robotic movements of a body that knew what to do without its mind halted as that mind was suddenly very much awake at the sight of what it was registering.

A stranger's wide, horrified eyes in a starved face stared back at him, one with so many forehead lines, crow's feet, and pale, sickly skin. His eyes were too big for his head, and although he already knew this because he'd felt it, there was no hair. The Ink had ravaged everything to near oblivion. 

He knew he would look like he had the flu. 

He looked like a late term cancer patient. 

This couldn't be right. The man he remembered in the mirror was _young._ Tired, yes, maybe not so healthy due to lack of sleep, but young, with long blonde hair and some color to his face and not nearly this amount of wrinkles and lines on his forehead and mouth and dark bags under his eyes. He lifted a hand.

The reflection did the same.

He lowered it. So did the reflection.

When did he start trembling?

Was that even himself?

Who _was_ he, anymore?

Staring at the man in the glass as if he might move independently, Sammy backed out of the room.


	10. mechanic [Wally, Thomas, Allison]

Wally considered himself a lucky man, on the whole. And for a lot of reasons. A whole lot of reasons. Slotted pretty solidly among those reasons were his best friends.

Allison was one of the most talented people he'd ever met. There weren't many joys like getting to watch her do her thing in the booth and Wally savored every chance he got- and admittedly slacked off a little sometimes to do it. Her voice talent was impeccable, on par with Susie's, but her Achilles Heel was her shyness. By being there to smile at her and give her a thumbs up, he helped her feel a little more comfortable and his reward was getting to listen to her mutter 'fuck' in the voice of a silly cartoon character when she screwed up her lines. Fewer things were funnier than listening to Daisy Bell's voice shout a curse word and fewer still when it was Alice's owing to Susie being down with whatever nasty bug.

Voice actors were wizards, Wally was sure. They had the magic touch.

So did Thomas.

And that was a magic Wally understood.

He might not understand giant-scale projects like the The Ink Machine, but Wally himself understood machines in general. He knew how to service a car, how to fix a fridge or an oven. He could even build small things to help him do his job.

But the Ink Machine was another monster, one that he was awed by every time he stepped into the room that housed it to help Thomas take care of the thing. Its guts were a complicated dance of gears that never failed to leave him staring every time Thomas opened her up to take a look inside. He loved watching them twirl.

He couldn't begin to imagine what the purpose of the machine actually was, but boy was it an amazing thing to watch.

As equally amazing as it was to watch Thomas maintenance it. He would watch Thomas tighten bolts and screws and explain what things did and grin.

Sure, it might not be his job, but was it cool? Always. Thomas seemed to enjoy sharing the ins and outs of the job, too. Patiently, he would go back over anything Wally forgot or didn't understand. Allison would talk about pitching her voice, would smile at him from the booth when he popped in to support her.

Which was why it was so confusing when Thomas began to get irritated with him for forgetting specific details. When Allison started to refuse to look at him when he would duck in, something in her eyes sad and upset.

They were all masters of their craft.

If only any of them knew how to fix a friendship, Wally thought as he cleaned up the latest spill.


	11. bargaining [Susie and Sammy]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild Susie _finally_ fucking appears.

"You're upset." The usual lilt in her voice was missing, replaced by the kind of flat assertion accompanying the sureness of being right.

"I'm not talking about it." He didn't bother to deny it. It never worked with her. Better to throw up a wall. He scowled down at his music sheet, still no closer to being done than earlier.

His head pounded.

"I have thin mints." She held the roll out to him. 

He stared for a minute. At the cookies. At her thin eyebrows bunched together, a silent promise of the gentlest sort of war. He knew how this went.

It was a battle he was used to, and one he'd never won.

And. Chocolate. Chocolate and mint. _Thin mints._ He'd finished the last of his three days ago.

"... Okay fine, gimmie."

* * *

"You're upset." His voice was unusual in its softness, his frown following suit.

"No I'm not," she chirped. It fell flat when she slammed her desk drawer shut a little too hard. Her stomach screamed louder with nausea.

"You should eat," he said in that tone he had that actually meant _you should sit down and talk to me._

"I'm not hungry."

"I ordered pizza."

Blue eyes squinted at green. He didn't blink. Nor would he.

"Sausage?"

"Extra. With a side of garlic knots."

"... Fine, but I get all the knots and leftovers."

He smiled, a rare sunbeam. Some of the dark clouds dispersed. "Deal."


	12. ring [Joey, Henry, Sammy]

He knew Henry was in love. It had been clear for years, obvious, in a way that stirred something in the pit of Joey's gut to nausea.

He considered, very thoroughly, the idea that he was in love with Henry. Was this heartbreak? Could that make sense of this feeling?

No, Joey decided. It wasn't heartbreak. There was no gaping hole in his chest or anything. There was something else- something that felt like flares of heat that fanned hotter when he saw her with him.

It was anger, he realized. Anger that she would presume to know him as well as Joey did, that she would smile at him and he would smile back and cancel plans with his brothers, his _brothers!_ Just for a date on that dumb beach.

Sammy didn't like her either. He wasn't very subtle about it. It infuriated Joey that Sammy did nothing about this but shrug.

"It's not our choice. As long as she makes Henry happy, this is how it is." He wouldn't look at Joey as he spoke, head turned and gaze down, glaring at the floor as his knuckles turned white on his arms. "This is his choice. We have to honor that."

Joey didn't see why he should honor such a terrible choice.

Sammy sang an entire song at their wedding- one that Linda didn't like, but Linda didn't like any part of them anyway, so there was no real surprise there. Linda must have kept it to a simmer because all Henry did was smile and embrace his little brother, tears sliding down his face as Sammy quietly returned the hug.

Joey sat silent through the wedding, and throughout the two weeks following- Henry's honeymoon and moving out.

Linda didn't follow Henry when he went to visit them, and Joey could almost pretend Henry had moved out merely for a bit of space and not to live with her...

If not for the gold wedding band on Henry's ring finger that mocked him with every sparkle and glint of light it caught. It was too cheerful, too bright, too final.

So when it vanished off his finger, when Henry stopped bringing up Linda all together, he didn't question it.

It quelled that flare in his gut, and that was good enough.


	13. heated [Henry]

"Mrs. Hanson-"

"Mom."

"... I was, um- wondering if I could have another blanket?"

His foster mother snapped her purse shut and looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Whatever for?"

"The one I had is, uh... gone."

She scowled. "Well that's your fault isn't it?"

_Because of your kids,_ he wanted to say.

But he didn't.

* * *

"Um- I was wondering..."

As soon as he opened his mouth he wished he hadn't, and the howling wind outside gave him hope that she hadn't even heard him. He wasn't quite sure he'd heard his own words, anyway.

But no such luck. She leaned back into the room. "What?"

He took a deep breath. "Could I have one of the older quilts?"

She sighed. "You know those are for when your grandfather visits."

"But he doesn't visit."

She gave him an ugly look, her grip on the knife she was dicing vegetables with tightening. He swallowed and muttered a hasty apology, scooting out of the room.

On his way back upstairs Joshua grinned at him, and the shame and the helpless fury welling up in Henry's stomach was enough to make him sick.

* * *

"Where'd you get this?"

Chrissy held up the big quilt, two corners pinched between her fingers, looking it over with the calm, cold looking that Henry knew heralded disaster as her evil little brain calculated how best to hurt him with the information she just learned.

"My sister asked you a question." He yelped as Joshua pulled his hair. He couldn't get any taller than standing on his tiptoes to alleviate the pain. "I know you're too dumb to pay attention to teachers, but you've got a vested interest here."

The corner of Chrissy's mouth turned up just slightly. "Like there's not a vested interest in getting good grades?"

"Well I mean- he's too stupid for college."

_So are you!_

Another brutal yank drew a gasp. "I bought it with money I earned!"

Oh no, he was _not_ showing them his stash. _They can't find it on their own right? There's no way, there's no way._

"Liar."

"No rea- ah!" He couldn't get any taller than standing on his tiptoes but that sure didn't stop him from trying anyway.

"I bet you stole it from Mom's purse!"

"That would make the most sense," Chrissy mused, throwing the blanket over one arm.

"Wh- no! No I earned it, I really did! Give it back!" He grabbed at the hand in his hair, but his scrabbling meant nothing to a football player who stood almost a foot taller than him.

"No way did you earn money. Who would even hire you!?" Joshua's laugh was a mocking boom.

"But I did and it was- I work at A Wrench In The Plan!"

Chrissy blinked, tilting her head, her braids bobbing. "The hardware store?"

"Hah! You haven't even left highschool yet and you've got a dead end job? You can't even be a screwup in the right order!" Joshua laughed harder.

"Wait, you bring that baby to a _hardware store_ all day!?"

"What- _no!"_ Oh god no. "Never! Do you _know_ how much dangerous stuff is in there!? No, I work while he's at daycare!"

Wait what time was it- oh no shit it was probably about time to go get Harry-

"I don't think anyone would actually hire him," Chrissy said smoothly. "He shouldn't have this; he didn't buy it with money he actually earned."

"But-"

"What should we do about it?"

She gestured for him to follow her with the crook of a finger, and no amount of struggling could stop the much bigger boy from dragging Henry down the stairs.

He didn't bother crying out for Mackenzie and Kennedy, reading a book in the living room and making a snack in the kitchen, respectively, and they didn't bother to do more than halfway glance up and return to what they were doing.

He didn't want to know what they were doing in the shed now, but he was pretty sure Chrissy would make it apparent.

And she did, pulling a lighter out of a drawer. His breath caught.

"He wants to be warm so bad? Let's help him out."

It was good for him that the shed floor was dirt. The shed catching fire might have actually spelled his death.

It was less lucky that the quilt was made of cloth.

* * *

"Hey daddy? Why do we have so many quilts?" Alice stood in front of the linen closet, head tilted. "We have a million. And we even have an electric blanket, too! Why do we need so many?"

Henry smiled. "I just like blankets."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... really did know what to write for today so have some backstory I guess? The very specific instances in this one are more tentative in their canonicalness than the previous ones but the general gist of it all is very much canon (to my bullshit only).


	14. arch [Bendy and Sammy]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much like ‘cake’ I don’t know how to write for ‘arch’ without using the word, whoops. Also I realize this is supposed to be inclusion of the new canon but I haven’t figured out how to make that work with my shit yet, so that will have to wait.
> 
> ... I need to stop writing Sammy for at least a week, jesus.

The entrance to the break room with the pool table had no door. A lovely wooden arch marked the way to paradise after a long day at work, sometimes decorated with seasonal things to put a smile on the faces of the weary souls finding their way to the room searching for rejuvenation.

And, sometimes, containing little traps for pranks, like cling wrap, because Bendy was the most obnoxious little gremlin to ever breathe or giggle.

So nobody was particularly surprised to find someone had carefully attached mistletoe over their heads somewhere in the midst of moving all the tables, chairs, and the pool table aside for that night's Christmas party. And they were less surprised to see Bendy sitting off to the side, grin nearly splitting his face as he watched the doorway, waiting for some hapless victims to find themselves underneath.

"Get off the table, Bendy," Thomas told the little devil sitting on the table he stepped up to help move it.

"Aw, but why?" He shifted to lay on his stomach, hands propping his head up as he looked pitifully up at Thomas. "I barely weigh anything!"

"It'd still be easier," came the flat answer.

Norman leaned against the table from the other end with a grin as Bendy gave an exaggerated frown. "But- but- you forgot to consider something!"

"What?"

He batted his eyes at him. "I'm cute."

Thomas grabbed him by the scruff and dumped him on one of the chairs, Bendy erupting into cat yowls as Norman shook with laughter.

"No fair! Innocent until proven guilty! THIS IS ANARCHY-"

"You don't even know what that means," snorted Henry as he walked by to help Johnny move the rest of the chairs.

"I do too! It's when nobody follows the rules." Bendy folded his arms across his chest.

"Liiiike no sitting on the table?" Johnny pointed out with a snicker.

Bendy pouted. "Like using the organ to make yer dramatic breakup music during work hours."

"Hey! I only use it during break hours!" Johnny protested as giggles of varying degrees of volume bubbled up throughout the room.

"Okay, I've got the cake-" Bendy sat up straight at Sammy's approaching voice, grinning.

"You guys said you needed my help-?"

Sammy and Susie stepped into the doorway at the same time.

Sammy's eyes found Bendy's immediately, went from the giant grin to above, saw the mistletoe, and flushed violently red.

_This is gonna be good this is gonna be good this is gonna be SO GOOD-_

And then in one smooth motion, Sammy backed from the doorway, gave Susie a little bow, and said "Ladies first."

"Aw, Sammy, that's sweet of you," she giggled as she stepped through the arch, waving to Allison as she walked over to where her best friend was setting up the cups for later.

Sammy looked back to Bendy's flabbergasted face as a giant, shit-eating grin claimed his face.


	15. poisoning [Susie]

Something... weird was happening to her.

"Go away."

At first she thought maybe it was stress.

"Don't talk to me."

Then she was sure it was grief. You don't lose the role that defined the accomplishments of your life and not exit unscathed. And oh, sure, she hadn't lost it just yet, but she wasn't stupid. Susie could see the writing on the wall.

"You're lying to me!"

It was natural to feel the love she once felt turn to hatred when it came to Joey, Allison, Sammy. They threw her away. They all threw her away. Damian and Bailey didn't stand up for her. They just watched her in silence when Joey began to try to tell her that they were taking Alice's character in a different direction.

A direction Susie could foretell she would hate and would not be around to see. At least not from a major role.

"You don't want me either!"

But... why yell at _Alice?_

The thought gave her pause, hitting like a truck only after Alice fled the room. Why would she yell at Alice? Alice didn't do anything wrong.

But something was wrong.

 _She_ was wrong.

It was like something was... festering inside her. Something rotten.

... Something toxic.


	16. vision [Joey]

Ever since he was small, Joey knew what he wanted.

Sometimes he would stand in the hall, staring up at the portraits of his parents, and wonder what his place would be in the history of their family.

He knew, even as he stood there as a tiny boy, that it would not be what they were pushing him to be. That whatever mark he would leave on this world, it would be something to be remembered beyond the circle of the people he knew, something that people the world over would know of. Life was a canvas to paint whatever he wanted, something to affect the minds of millions, not a pot to stuff things into.

His parents saw only what they could gain. But, especially as he grew older, Joey saw what he could _effect._

Mr. and Mrs. Drew came by the house, ordered him around a little, turned their noses up at whatever condition his frailty had left him in if it was anything less than stellar, and were soon gone to woo more people with big bags of money to try to get some of that money into their own bags.

“You’re smart,” Henry assured him. “You’ve got so many ideas. So what if they’re not the same ones they have? People aren’t cookies to be stamped into dough. And also cookies are tasty regardless of the shape, anyway.”

“You’re making me hungry,” he giggled, eyes straying to the gingerbread men Henry was doodling with abandon all over what was supposed to be his homework.

“Hungry is better than sad,” Henry said sagely, but a smile was starting to tug at the corner of his mouth.

“It is,” Joey agreed slowly, just now remembering that the cook said he would be making cookies for them later. “And right now I’m gonna get all the cookies Tobias is making if I get there first!”

“No fair! No fair I was working!” Henry yowled as he threw himself out of his chair. Henry was always a slow runner, and at his healthiest (and having not been sick in weeks) Joey was a cheetah, and right now he was soaring down the hallway, drunk on laughter and dreams.

Later that night, when Henry had reluctantly returned home (”We gotta. We’ve been gone too many days; they’ll notice if I don’t take Harry and head back tonight.”) and the laughter had quieted and the house had stilled and darkened, Joey tugged his glasses off to stare at himself in the mirror. 

He looked smart. He _was_ smart. He could draw and write and do things. He could see the path forward in life, even if he was still little, even if his parents insisted he was too little to know what he ought to want on the scant chance they were even around to notice him drawing.

His parents ignored him, blinded only by what they stood to amass from the masses. 

They forgot.

But the world would remember.

He’d make sure of it.


	17. distractions [Bertrum and the toons]

"No."

"But it's really cool!" Bendy cooed, half laying on the table, feet off the floor, chin in hands as he stared at the little model buildings, riveted on the center tower.

"I don't care. You can't touch it." Bertrum looked over his shoulder from the bulletin boards and the copious posters, notes, blueprints, and concept drawings pinned to them to give the little devil a glare.

"You're not even using it right now- ooOOOOOO IS THAT WHAT IT'S GONNA LOOK LIKE!" Bendy had spotted one of the concept drawings for the completed tower. "THAT'S SO COOL!"

_Breathe. Calm down. Do not strangle the little gremlin. **No matter how much he's inviting it.**_

"Oh gosh Bendy- there's really no point in playing with them, though." Boris tapped his forefingers together. "We should just leave."

"We're bothering him," Alice came right out and said. Bertrum heaved a quiet sigh of relief that someone, at least, understood without having to be told. 

"We're annoying," she added quietly, and suddenly he felt a lot less relieved.

"No," he huffed. "But you _are_ loud. I have work to get done. Revisions to do." He turned around fully and did not like the pang in his gut from the vastly different body language going on with the three than had existed a minute ago.

"You want a nice park to play in sometime, don't you?" he coaxed, gesturing with a sweep of his hand back at the bulletin board. "Won't it be nice to leave the studio?"

Boris blinked, ears flopping to the other side of his head as he tilted it. "... But we can't."

Now it was Bertrum's turn to be confused. "Wait, doesn't someone take you out now and again?"

Alice shook her head. "Too dangerous."

"Yeah, there's superfans who stalk the woods tryin'na find the studio." Bendy poked a little at the tower, previous chutzpa gone. "Someone might see us."

“... And there’s no plans on how to introduce you to the public someday?”

“Not that we know of,” Boris mumbled.

... Did Joey really make three people of a brand new species without factoring that in? Did he _really?_

The sentiment must have started to show because all three shrank away from him. Bertrum sighed and drew a hand down his face. 

No time for this now. No time for any of this right now. He needed to find his quiet place. The zone. He needed to get back on track ( _Eugh accidental pun,_ he thought as his eyes snagged on the Buddy Boris Railway concept art) and store those thoughts for later and get these three out of his room...

Without upsetting them further.

 _"There_ you are."

Bertrum's hand lowered in surprise at the voice- it was only vaguely familiar to him, but more familiar than it might have otherwise been.

He didn't have much to do with the music department given his line of work, but Sammy Lawrence's voice was rather impossible to not know in some fashion, given the amount of use it got in yelling Joey's name all the way from the music department itself anytime a pipe broke. Or anytime Bendy did something obnoxious.

_Actually that's not happening as much anymore, is it. Hm._

"I've been looking for you," Mr. Lawrence scolded as he crested the top of the stairs, his stern face a bit softer than Bertrum expected as he stood there, hands on his hips, surveying each toon. "I found more coloring books for you and, Alice, I found that book you've been wanting to read. You'll need to take care with it though; it's a library book."

"You found it?" Alice's face lit up, and her halo, more literally, as she bounded over to Mr. Lawrence, stopping just short of hugging his legs. "Oh thank you, thank you! Where is it?"

"My office." Yet another surprise. "... If you three want to stay awhile. That's up to you."

"Yes please!" they all said in unison, Bendy hopping down from the table and Boris's ears perking considerably. They all flashed him smiles as they walked by, hurrying down the stairs.

Mr. Lawrence sighed and stretched, giving a nod to Bertrum before following after them.

... Maybe Bertrum should ask Mr. Lawrence a thing or two-

A timer went off and he nearly jumped, grumbling once he remembered a moment after that embarrassment that he only had a few more hours before his meeting with Mr. Drew.

He could ask him. He should. But first he should get back to work.

Maybe, if he didn't want to rip Mr. Drew's head off during the meeting too much, he'd remember to ask him some questions of a not-strictly-work nature.

Bertrum righted the model tower Bendy knocked askew and turned back to his blueprints.


	18. teeth [Allison Angel]

That grin would haunt her dreams for as long as she lived, and she didn't have a ton of faith that would be very long.

Then again, how did anyone measure time down here? It was impossible. Minutes could feel like hours and vice-versa, and there were almost no clocks. Sometimes the struggle with time threatened to smother her... a gentler death than what would happen if that thing got her.

The first time she saw The Ink Demon was also very nearly Ali's last. It was thanks to Tom that she survived.

She'd hoped by some miracle that she'd never see that thing again, but, of course, that hope came to ruin.

Ali tried to keep her spirits up, keep all their spirits up. They had to keep going because what other choice did they have? So she would do her best to find ways to make them smile.

She suspected Bennie did the same, so she made sure to give as good as she got. Bennie deserved it.

Sometimes, when Tom was busy with something that required intense concentration, and she didn't feel like taking a nap, she would go off to find Bennie in whatever hideout even though she had a feeling that Bennie being off by himself meant he wanted to be alone. Maybe it was selfish of her, to want company so badly, but at least she'd make sure to try to get him to laugh. Sometimes her efforts would pay off with a bright smile.

More often than she cared to admit, sometimes that giant grin would make her skin crawl. Not often at all. But more often than she'd like.

The much smaller toon would sometimes insist, when they were alone together and the topic turned towards serious going-ons inside the studio, that The Ink Demon wasn't just a mindless beast.

"I think it's sad," he said once, quietly.

"It has literally tried to eat you."

"No. I think he was just scared and angry and wanted me to go away." He hugged his knees, staring off up into the rafters with cloudy eyes. "Maybe he's scared we'll hurt him."

She thought on that later. Bennie wasn't stupid. His words, his deductive reasoning, had weight, same as any of theirs did. There were many times he had solutions to problems they hadn't considered before.

No, Bennie wasn't stupid.

But he _could_ be wrong.

She woke up, sweat-drenched and shaking, the ghostly specter of gleaming white teeth haunting her even after it faded from her visage.

Bennie, she reasoned, was entirely too sweet for his own good.

And that maw would one day prove it, if she didn't keep an eye on him.


	19. entertainment [Shawn]

Being the overseer of the miniature toy factory within the studio building was... interesting, once upon a time.

Shawn liked toys. It was why he took this job. He liked toys and he liked making them. When he was handed the design for the very first Bendy doll, he grinned, because it was cute and he knew it was going to make a lot of kids happy. Hell, it was going to make a lot of adults happy, too.

He loved walking around the factory, watching the machines do their thing. It wasn't a very big place, for a factory, but it was nice and it was his. His little domain. A tiny kingdom.

Okay, it was a lot less fancy than you'd imagine a kingdom to look, but still. It was cool. People whose departments had nothing to do with the toy department would swing by to say hello to their friends who worked there and, if they were so inclined, buy a toy right off the conveyor belt.

He sold one to Wally once, a tiny Boris that squeaked when you hugged it, and the way Wally's face lit up made Shawn's heart start thumping.

Shawn saw Wally frequently after that. Big sunbeam smiles and little mischievous crooked ones and high fives and his head spinning, spinning, spinning.

He got invited to their games of pool because he knew Wally, and from there he made so many more friends.

All good things come to an end. Every functioning adult knows this.

But Shawn didn't anticipate the end being so... long. Drawn out. Sad.

It started with a few people quitting. Then more. A machine or two stopped working. Suddenly he had to paint the smiles on the plastic dolls by hand.

It was boring work. Dull. So agonizingly dull it was almost painful.

Shawn painted a few of the smiles on crooked, like the smile he never saw from Wally anymore, and got yelled at by Joey for it.

_Well, if you don't like it, then help me! Bring this place back to life!_

_Before we all go crazy._


	20. paralyzed [Henry]

He thought the hardest part of this, aside from actually confronting the rotting remains of what had once been his friend to save his son, was finding Susie's tape.

Susie was capable of anger. Henry wasn't so naive that he thought otherwise. He'd seen her lose her temper before.

What he found on that tape was...

_"Oooh and Alice? She doesn't like liars."_

He wanted to throw up. He sat at the table there for a few minutes, staring at nothing as it played, and for a few minutes afterwards, too. It was only remembering Boris that forced him to his feet.

If he thought he felt awful then, though, oh god, did he have another thing coming.

The inky vat thing that sat before him bubbled and he wasn't sure what it wanted from him, but there was a wheel nearby on a pipe, and turning those tended to make something happen, so he did.

And after a moment he almost screamed.

One of the weird blob-people-things broke the surface of the ink, hunched and shaking.

He'd avoided thinking too hard about it until now, but that used to be a person. That was a pers-

Henry's legs gave out and he collapsed to his knees beside the thing, arms coming up to rest on the lip. He felt his fingers touch the ink inside but while the vat-thing wasn't empty, he couldn't say the same for him.

He knelt there for several minutes before pushing himself to his feet. Pushing himself to figure out what he was supposed to do here.

Pushing himself to push it all back and away, hiding behind layers of fog because at least the fog was safe; at least he didn't have to think about it for awhile, and not while he was on a timer.

While _Boris_ was on a timer.

He was not prepared for the ink-person with legs.

With a _voice._

He stood there in shock, gaping, struggling to make his brain work again. It didn't, really, but instinct guided him to open the door.

He was less prepared for what lay on the other side.

The dozens of glowing eyes stared back at him as he wandered in as if in a trance, looking at each of them as he staggered by. They turned to look at him when close enough, but no one spoke. No one moved to touch anyone else.

The silence hung thick over the room, a blanket to smother them.

He will set us free on the wall, again. Not Sammy this time. Everyone else? Everyone here?

Who? Did they all think the thing in the shape of his son would save them?

Crying. Someone was crying. He looked over to the one curled up in the corner by a candle and the sound tugged him forward. He crouched by them, opened his mouth.

"What-?" he whispered, the words thick as mud. He didn't know what to ask. _What can I do for you? How can I help you? Are you in pain? What happened?_

_Do I know you?_

_Do you even know you?_

There was no response to even the single word he had pushed out. He stood up and moved back, the steps becoming stumbles as he stopped and began to turn around in a circle, nearly twirling, staring at all the sad, glowing eyes staring back.

_Can **I** save you?_

_Am I too late?_

This was too much. Too much for even the fog in his mind to protect him from.

For the second time, his legs turned to jelly beneath him. He dropped and curled inward, forehead pressed against the floor. Some kind of cry came from him and it didn't sound human but he knew it was his because he felt it against his throat.

The tears were hot against his face as they dripped down his cheeks and nose. Dimly he knew he was sobbing. He knew he had to get up. To move. To hurry and get Boris.

But he was frozen. The world was frozen.

Only a single thought existed in the nothing the universe had shrunk to.

_This is all my fault._


	21. money [Henry]

Henry knew taking three more mouths in to feed, especially out of the blue, was not going to be easy.

He spent the car ride home with a too-tight grip on the steering wheel. He was almost too tired to think about what would come after this car ride, this night, but still, the thoughts came.

_How are you going to take care of them?_

He swallowed past the lump in his throat, glancing at the rearview mirror. Bendy lay in his lap, cheek smashed against his chest, and the other two slept in the back seat, Alice curled into Boris and Boris with his head on his sister's.

They all looked so bone-weary. A little too exhausted to look peaceful. But they were asleep and clearly dead to the world and hopefully there were no dreams to haunt their sleep.

At least there was tonight. At least there was the next couple hour on the road.

Looking back it was kind of amazing he'd actually driven an hour to work every day.

A bump on the road brought him back.

There was more than tonight. There would be tomorrow. And he would have to go to work. Beg for his job. That part didn't scare him so much. Mr. Applegate was a decent enough man, and he'd had no problems with Henry for decades. That was probably going to be fine.

But a mechanic's salary alone would not feed them all.

How was he going to provide for them? How would he put food on the table for them?

 _You don't need to eat much,_ floated up, and while not necessarily a _lie_ , he was now their only caretaker. He had to maintain himself to some degree. What would happen to them if he didn't?

He'd need a second job. That was definite. A second job, maybe a third one. He tried to swallow again and it was way harder than he liked.

The studio was behind them. Those horrors were over with.

And his kids were not prepared for the ones that lay ahead. It would be up to him to shield them as much as possible from it.

_But you can't really do that, can you?_

No. But he could try. _I have to try._


	22. voice [Norman]

It didn't speak. Everyone knew that.

It could see, somehow, and maybe hear, but it didn't speak. Likely couldn't.

But oh, could it scream.

Everyone knew to avoid The Projectionist's floors. The sound it made when spotting someone in its line of vision was one of the most chilling noises of the studio, heard from whole sections away sometimes. It was fast, with fingers that could sharpen into knives and fists that could punch their way through living beings. Aside from the twisted angel, The Projectionist was perhaps the most dangerous creature that haunted this world besides The Ink Demon itself- a remarkable feat considering that the demonic angel actually had her wits about her. Even Searchers tended to avoid areas The Projectionist visited.

Nobody who was still lucid enough to ponder such things knew what it could be looking for. Like Searchers, like Butchers, there was something hungry about it, but also so much more tragic. Despite the object head, it was far more human than either of the latter two monster; even the way it limped when not running suggested a human in pain rather than an otherworldly creature. Rumors flew that the speaker set in its chest could in fact also push forth words, but they were only rumors, and not among the more solid ones.

Not many Lost Ones still spoke at this point, but the ones that did could sympathize.

Sometimes people wondered who The Projectionist once was, or if he was an entity made from fragments of many. But there were no answers.

The worst part was knowing that no amount of sympathy could help the poor thing now. It was best to stay away and guiltily hope that someday either the angel would get tired of him and decide to off him herself somehow, or that he would be unlucky enough to cross the path of the Demon, who surely wouldn't stay his hand.

The Demon never did, after all.

Quite a mystery as to how he hadn't already met up with The Projectionist, but the Lost Ones weren't ones for digging into such mysteries.

In the end, the identity of The Projectionist, the mystery surrounding his continued survival, and whether or not there was anything inside him left able to speak would just have to lie and gather so much dust.

Like everything else in this awful place.


	23. lost [Grant]

This area of the studio was usually quiet, most of the time.

The floorboards creaked, and the ink dripped, and silence hung eerie and thick over the hallways.

_thunk, thunk, thunk_

He didn't notice the silence much, truth be told. It was just one part of this world that had faded into a fuzzy haze. There, but so mild compared to the other misery that it didn't register anymore. Nor did the occasional screaming. Nor did the occasional humming, or the roaring, or any number of noises.

Once he had heard the noises and beat on the door that remained ever locked, hoping someone would hear and come find him, come get him.

But nobody came. Not even the humming.

The longer he spent in this box, the more things he realized he didn't know. Where was he? Who was he? Where did he come from, and what was going on?

... Where were his glasses? He had glasses. Where were they?

This wasn't where he was supposed to be, either.

_thunk thunk thunk_

Eventually it all just faded into the background. There was nobody. Nothing. He looked over every square inch of the room and found nothing that could help him.

At least whacking his head into the wall distracted him from the nothingness around him.

_Please find me. Please someone find me._

And still, nobody came.


	24. heart [Henry]

At Joey Drew Studios, everyone put a little of themselves into every thing they did.

As much of a grouch as Sammy was, nobody would deny the man had a unique ear for music, an all-encompassing love for his craft that led to him creating scores that people who scoffed at cartoons would consider were trying too hard for a silly Saturday cartoon show. His fiery temper was outmatched only by the fire of passion that burned for his music, and people who weren't especially drawn to music or even to the cartoon they were helping to make would often find themselves humming or listening to the soundtracks for the show while working.

The band wove their souls into everything they played. Talent was hardly short here, especially among those who could play multiple instruments and step in when someone else was sick. Together with Sammy and Norman they created magic in auditory form.

Damian, Bailey, Susie, and Allison's voice talents were second to none, and anybody wandering by the recording studio could find them gesturing along to their lines, true actors in their own rights. Their abilities and their skills were nothing short of inspiring. Watching them slip into another person's voice like it was a second skin was utterly fascinating even to people who had never really considered what went on in the booth before.

The storyboarding staff brought everything they had to their work, and even people from other departments could see it in the liveliness of the characters, the way they could almost leap off the page. It was the little things that came to life here- the slightest extra line on a face could mean the difference between several different expressions. Movement that could convey tone and a character's true feelings without ever having to outwardly tell the audience what was happening. They took words on a page and converted it into a completely different medium.

The background artists' souls were found in their work, especially the occasional watercolor backgrounds. Colors and paints and life happened in that department; the art of stitching the surrounding world together, a real space in which the characters could exist. It was the kind of job that looked easy until you tried to do it. Nobody else could keep track of the ten million things that were sometimes in a scene except for these people.

Grant guarded their finances, kept loving, careful track of their money, ensured everyone got paid and paid on time. He filed their taxes, projected profits, and kept all of the bookkeeping organized neatly away in his filing cabinets for ease of use. Numbers were his safe haven, math a sure and steady concept he reveled in.

Shawn's toys were adorable; everyone loved them, adults and children alike, and he kept a careful eye on the factory's machines to ensure all of the toys were of the highest quality manageable. He would spend hours in his office designing new ones, showing them off with pride.

Thomas ensured the Machine was well, tending to its mass of pipes and gears and gauges and pressure valves. Nobody wanted to know what would happen--to the toons or the building--if it failed. Thomas made sure that didn't happen, and truly it would take a genius to understand the mechanics behind what he had to comprehend to keep it running as smoothly as he did.

Wally kept the studio clean, taking immense satisfaction in ensuring a clean, safe environment for everyone else to work in. It was far less simple than merely cleaning- keeping track of where he'd made his rounds, ensuring he got in the way as little as possible, how to safely clean certain equipment that could be dangerous? All part of a day's work, and he was pleased to be a part of it.

And then there was the one who kept the studio functioning the way it did.

Everywhere you went, there was Henry.

In the music department, listening to the band, workshopping with Sammy, watching Norman change lightbulbs, helping him haul projectors occasionally. In the recording booth, directing the voice actors, giggling at their flubs, encouraging them through stage fright. He worked with the storyboards artists, the background artists, the writers. He helped Grant with filing when he found him staying at his office too late, listened to Shawn's pitches, tour the studio with Thomas to peek at the pipes, and check in with Wally.

Henry's passion beat in the chest of the studio, radiating life outwards wherever he went.

It only made sense, really, that the studio died when it was removed.

Nothing functions with a vital organ missing, after all.


	25. sunshine [Henry]

The cement was warm, almost hot, against his bare feet as he sprang outside onto their tiny patio with a giggle. A leaf blew by his face and he grabbed it, running back the way he'd come and almost slamming right into his mother on the way back in.

"Mama, mama, look!"

He held up the leaf and pointed to it, and she smiled.

He wouldn't remember the rest of this little event later, and he didn't need to.

* * *

"I'm giving her the puppy," his papa explained as he gently lowered the whimpering, whining, squirming thing into the box. Henry tilted his head.

"Why?"

"Because she'll adopt it like it was her baby all along." Hands on his underarms; he was lifted into the air. The cat in the box was calico. He wouldn't remember much else. "See? She's sniffing him."

She was. A moment later, she began cleaning the whining infant.

"Instincts are a powerful thing," he murmured, shifting his son to rest against his hip. "Your mother says it's amazing how many of them are geared towards love."

Henry watched the puppy begin to nurse, something warm inside him growing. "It is."

* * *

"You're really pretty," he murmured as he fed the hungry baby batting at the bottle with his feet.

Harry flailed his fists around. Henry managed a smile, wishing he had a free hand to rub his heavy eyes.

"You are," he cooed. "You're a very beautiful baby. And you're good. Like- good all the way down to your core, and I hope you know that. I hope I teach you that. I hope-"

The words hung in the still darkness of early morning.

"I hope I do as good a job with you as Mama and Papa did with me," he finished in a mutter as he set the bottle aside, trying to ignore the way his voice cracked. The little feet batting at the bottle now kicked at his chest, and he swallowed.

"They were so- they were good too, down to their cores, and they were nice, and they loved me, and I love you, and I hope I make you understand that as well as they made me understand it." He lifted the baby to his shoulder and burped him, trying to blink back tears.

"... I miss them," he whispered as he lowered the baby back to his lap after he heard the burp.

Harry looked at him with his large, dark eyes- the ones Henry could almost believe came from his own mother, and liked to pretend did, sometimes. There was a teeny knot in the baby's forehead.

Then his face crinkled. His mouth lifted.

He laughed.

Henry stared in shock, a tear or two sliding uninhibited down his face as wide eyes stared at the giggling, flailing baby.

Then a laugh fell from his mouth. Another. Another.

Harry reached to press his tiny, chubby hands to his cheeks, and Henry laughed and laughed as the room grew light with morning around them.

* * *

Sammy's tongue was sticking out of his mouth as he worked again. He scratched notes onto his paper, frowned, redid them, tuned his guitar, sounded out the new ones.

His tongue kept poking in and out of his mouth, especially when tuning. Henry set his art down just to watch.

"What're _you_ smiling at?" Sammy snorted when the feeling of eyes on him must have finally penetrated the concentration of his work. 

"Just you," Henry beamed.

* * *

The world was choked out by dust and debris.

Henry had long ago come to consider himself... maybe not an atheist, but something close. If there was a god that claimed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, they had a lot to answer for.

He tripped over a leg. Just a leg.

A _lot._ To answer for.

Explosion to his left. He was just far away enough to avoid anything worse than a chunk of rock hit his head, but the force of the ground rocking sent him tumbling over, unable to stop his momentum in time before he started rolling down the hill.

He returned to himself to hear screaming nearby and scrambled to his feet, pushing onwards by blanking out everything else.

He did not fire his weapon. This time, he didn’t have to.

The dust eventually cleared. Henry felt the sunlight on his skin again. As he twirled in a slow circle, surveying the battlefield, the dust and dirt dissipating and leaving broken bodies in full view, something inside him snapped, and he sobbed.

A hand touched his shoulder, and he looked up (when had he collapsed to the ground?) to a face that would later be obscured by scribbles and stains on his memory, but at the time was warm and bright and weary but alive.

He clasped the hand and squeezed it tightly and even in a field of death at least there was this, at least there was this string holding him up.

* * *

It had been a long day. Unremarkable. Nothing particularly special.

He crossed the street on his way home, hands in his pockets. He might say he was enjoying the emptiness of his head, but really it was so empty there wasn't much of anything.

That was how he liked it, whenever the fog lifted enough for thought.

He stopped short at seeing a man sitting on a stoop as he rounded the corner. The other man's eyes turned away instantly, shoulders drawing up.

Henry walked softly up to the cup sitting beside him and peered in, then got out his wallet and dropped a few dollars in before giving him a gentle "good evening," and going on his way.

* * *

He had vowed to save them. To pull them all from the depths of this cold, dark, hole and end this nightmare once and for all.

And Henry had meant it when he said it, even as something within him knew he had no idea how, exactly, to do this. Not knowing how to do it meant nothing at the time; he just knew he had to.

That he managed it felt like a miracle.

It didn't feel truly real until he pushed the door open to find himself standing in the cracked parking lot, Bendy in one arm, Boris clinging to his other sleeve, staring out at the last few sunbeams of daylight touching the world golden and orange.

The slimy ink clung to his clothes and his skin. His breath shuddered, and his body straightened from putting his shoulder into opening the door as he stared around the parking lot, almost not daring to move any further.

The flowers in the cracks in the asphalt waved in the breeze, reaching up for the sunlight; for a wild moment, he wanted to do the same.

He managed not to cry, but only just.

There was still work to be done.

* * *

Henry clasped his hands around his coffee mug, breathing in the steam from the hot drink as he sat in the quiet of the blue-gray pre-dawn. He watched the sun rise slowly from the treeline beyond their yard through the back door, watched it stroke the trees, the grass, the pool. It sparkled on the dewdrops, jeweled light reflecting off the water droplets.

The last stars were disappearing, tucked in by the blanket of light to sleep until nightfall. Henry watched them wink out one by one. There went the Big Dipper, and Polaris, and that one that looked like a cat...

The crickets were quieting. Cicadas began to sing in their stead, maybe woken by the warmth. It would be a hot one today, but for now the breeze was cool and the earth was warm and the result was a comfortable atmosphere to sit in.

He stirred his coffee. The liquid sloshed against the sides of the mug.

The early risers would be up soon. In less than a half hour.

Heavy lids looked back from his drink to his kitchen.

The sun streamed through the windows and began to creep over the room, touching the counter, and the cabinets, and the tile. It lit up their bulletin board (and the note telling Bendy to clean the bathroom, he noted with a little frown as he remembered Bendy had yet to do that), and the little chalkboard on which they left notes to each other.

It embraced the numerous plants in the room, their leaves turning from blue-green in the shade to bright emerald in the light. 

He closed his eyes and breathed it in as it lit upon him in his chair, hoping somehow he could put it into his body and light him from within, linger inside him and radiate outwards like a kaleidoscope.

That would be nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Henry is very easily taken by the little things. Cicadas of summer, the little idiosyncrasies people do without thinking, sunbeams at sunrise, how animals will seek human help because they know humans will likely lend a hand._
> 
> _He's not a child. He knows very, very well the world is also cruel and evil and dangerous._
> 
> _But sometimes it is soft and golden and a cup of coffee at sunrise as the last stars are hidden by the sun and sometimes it is the first laughter of a baby and sometimes it is a mother cat accepting a newborn puppy as one of her own._
> 
> _And sometimes it is the kindness we leave strangers with long after we are gone._
> 
> _That's worth something."_
> 
> Something I wrote about Henry to describe why Sleeping At Last's Sun was so fitting of him. I'd meant to write a drabble of some sort based on this explanation and gave a go at it here, but I'm not sure if I'm completely satisfied with it and might revisit this concept another time.


	26. crying [Lacie]

Lacie hated tears.

They were natural, of course; she wasn't some emotionally-repressed weirdo. They were important, and she begrudged nobody their right to them.

But they were uncomfortable to shed and uncomfortable to watch others shed and just as she knew they were natural and would never shame anyone for it, nor could she pretend she had any idea what to do about them.

People cried in the studio. Probably a sign they should leave this place. Lacie would be glad to as soon as her job here was done.

She bit her lip hard enough to nearly make it bleed, scrubbing tears from her eyes as she stared down at the broken carnival game she'd spent four months on.

She would be glad indeed.

"Sorry," came the meek apology from one of the goons Joey had hired to help keep the amusement park storage area in working order.

"Fuck off." She had no time for the semi-patience she tried to regard them with. He made himself scarce.

Lacie considered herself a strong, capable person. She knew her craft, she paid her bills, she shouldered burdens and made peace with others. She got along decently well with people she had to work with, and she had a healthy enough sense of humor.

But the end of that descriptor was 'person.' At day's end, she was only human.

And humans wept when sad, scared, hurt, frustrated.

Most of which she felt right now.

She could suck it up and tackle the project immediately. She had the blueprints so it wouldn't take another four months; maybe just a few days.

Lacie put her wrench down on the game, closed it up, and went to go find an empty closet to sob in, stopping by Bertrum's office to peek at his schedule to guess at where he'd be when she was done.

The game would still be there tomorrow.


	27. fight [Boris]

Boris hated arguments.

Oh, fake ones were all right. The squabbling with Bendy and Alice, or between Bendy and Sammy- those kinds were fine! They were funny. They weren't serious; they were just a different form of playing. He engaged with it himself, sometimes- usually to Bendy, since Bendy was forever doing stupid things that could only prompt a sane person to respond by pointing out said stupid things.

Sammy's way of responding was usually louder, but he didn't mean it. It felt more like a bit from one of their episodes, than anything. Sammy never managed to catch Bendy and Boris couldn't imagining him actually harming the little devil if he did. In fact, the closest he'd ever seen Sammy come to that was throwing a couch cushion at him once.

When had those silly nonsense squabbles that bubbled up around the studio between friends gone and turned into real, actual yelling?

It wasn't at all uncommon to pass by a department and hear two people or more going at it, angry words and raised voices.

He hurried to walk by and not be spotted but the yelling would ring for awhile yet.

As bad as that though, it was nothing compared to Joey.

Joey actually _didn't_ yell. Maybe it would almost be better if he did. If anything his voice _lowered._

His eyes narrowed.

His words sharpened.

And he knew where to stick them.

Hearing random people in the studio arguing was scary, but hearing Joey start one or respond to one was the most terrifying thing Boris had ever seen.


	28. hollow [Henry]

Eat. Sleep. Alarm. Wake up. Shower. Clothes. Coffee.

Car. Drive to work. Smile at coworkers. Clock in.

It was a simple life. Stable. Routine. After the things he'd been through, simple and stable were good.

Cars were fascinating things. And it was... honestly interesting to take them apart and look at all the little pieces.

And there was a special sort of pride in making them all work properly in harmony again. He could do something with his hands and make it work again and earn a paycheck for it.

And that was what you were supposed to do, right? Work. Earn the right to eat and have a roof over your head, like you weren't a person, like the government didn't promise you that it would protect you after everything it put you through-

_Breathe._

_Stop._

_Focus._

As much as an idiot like you can focus, anyway.

He got used to smelling like motor oil. It wasn't as good as ink and paper.

But nothing ever would be, so that wasn't a surprise. Just a disappointment.

_No, stop. Don't go there._

Maybe he could generate the ink smell, himself. He still had his old artist's easel. Still had paper. Would just need to buy ink and maybe a good pen or two. Maybe a couple nice pencils.

Ten years of intermittent periods of trying to draw again later, and all Henry had to show for it were crumpled up papers littering the floor.

The job was still stable. More years went by. The job remained stable.

Every once in awhile he would catch a glimpse of blonde hair and his heart would leap into his throat, and then he would get a better look and feel the gray haze of disappointment settle in his gut.

Finish the day’s work. Clock out, smile. Swing by the store for a couple groceries.

Go home, put groceries away. Microwave something to eat. Clean bathroom. Watch TV for an hour.

Bed.

The dreams weren't as often an occurrence as they used to be. Every year they got a little less.

But they still existed.

His apartment floor saw more tears than he'd ever admit to anyone. Another thing that lessened over the years, but still came.

Over the dreams, over... other things.

And like a hurricane, when they arrived, they flattened everything to ruin.

_Is this it? Is this all life boils down to?_

_I am going to work until I die alone and nobody will even notice until I miss work too many days in a row._

_I am empty. What is left of me?_

_No, stop. You're whining. You're one of the lucky ones. You're alive. You're not devastatingly disabled._

_I'm **alone.**_

Morning. Dry face. Shower. Clothes. Coffee.

Car. Drive to work.

_Smile._

Clock in.

Time to get to work.


	29. despair [Henry]

The door was hard against his back and the baseball bat solid against his hand.

Henry tried to imagined hitting someone with it. He hadn't ever done that before. He'd used army-issued rifles. A bayonet, several times. A rock several more times.

And... something... else. Something that tickled the edge of his memory but was like touching a hot stove so he let it be.

But those were all in war. A battlefield. The middle of a fucking forest somewhere. Trenches. A beach. Countryside with farmsteads and fields and fields of crops or animals. The scenery changed but the war didn't. The death didn't. The fighting didn't. It was all the same; try to not kill anyone as much as possible, but stay alive and try to keep the others alive.

But this was- was supposed to be away from all that. 

He was stateside now. A civilian once more, and had been for many decades. He'd never again considered the idea of the army; he hadn't wanted to go the first time, and given what he returned as, he didn't want to stay.

Even having nothing to return to didn't change his mind. He'd rather die in the streets.

There was no home. There hadn't been in many years. But at least being here meant he didn't have to be surrounded by killing anymore.

And yet because Bendy wandered into a crowd and had been seen by at least a hundred people who had most definitely gone and told other people and videotaped the whole thing and now the world knew...

That was potentially what would be asked of him tonight, with far fewer tools. 

Even so, he was strong and solid despite his age. And he had a weapon.

He could, physically, kill a man; he knew that. 

Considering what they'd be here for, he'd want to, even.

That was a thought- the thought of wanting to.

But he saw the bedroom door ajar from where he sat, imagined soldiers ripping his children out of bed, and a red haze crawled across his vision.

Yes. He would _want_ to.

He would not even hesitate. 

It would do no good against a platoon of soldiers, but he would not hesitate.

If they came tonight, when they came tonight, he would die.

But so would as many of them as he could manage with his baseball bat and his bare fists and his teeth if necessary.

His hand tightened on the bat and he let the texture of it searing itself into his hand and the red haze growing ever darker across his vision drown out the tears dripping off his nose.

_He would want to._


	30. hope [Henry]

"You... want to do _what?"_

That he could force the words out at all was a miracle. He almost lost his grip on his lunch pail, staring at the gaggle of young people grinning beaming rays of excited sunshine at him.

"Clear out your ears, old man!" one of them laughed, and her friend elbowed her without even dropping the smile.

"We wanna pay to see them!" she said.

"Like- watch them do stuff the way Bendy did in Old Timer's Park last week," another clarified, maybe aware how creepily her friend had accidentally phrased that.

"You know, like a performance!"

"B-but-" How did they even know he was- "I don't-"

"Oh pshh you're definitely him," snorted a fourth girl, waving her phone. "It took awhile to track you down, but that's definitely you on the footage."

"So like- are you his dad?" A much softer, more curious question from the fifth girl. Henry blinked.

"Um-" Well they'd already seen him rush in and scoop Bendy up and flee. The whole world had, by now.

He didn't have internet--too expensive; TV was bad enough--but even he knew how the internet worked. He'd been hoping he'd look too ordinary and unremarkable and had been moving too fast or maybe hiding his face too well for anyone to get any clear image of him on video, even despite the number of phones aimed at Bendy's juggling act.

He'd known that would be a false hope. He wasn't guarding the front door every night until he passed out with a baseball bat in hand for kicks.

But this was-

"Yes," he said softly. Whether he lied or not, they'd already come to their own conclusions.

"Did you make him?"  
"Wow that's so cool what's he like when he's not performing!"  
"Does he have a favorite food?"  
"Is he made out of that weird black stuff that's gotten in ink bottles recently?"  
"Is he the cause of it?"

"Wh- wait, wait wait- uh-" Oh god focus. "N-no, that's too complex for a short answer, yes, the answer is almost everything-"

Be smart. No need to reveal _everything._

"I don't know, and I don't think so? In that order."

"What do you mean, you don't _think_ so?" One of the girls put her hands on her hips. Henry did some quick calculations.

"What I mean is- he- seemed as confused as I was. When I asked about it." He rubbed the back of his neck. "It um- it's not like he's got any more of an idea what's going on than anyone else does."

"Are the rest of them there?" One girl's eyes shone like stars. "Alice was always my favorite. Is she real, too?"

"They totally are, aren't they." The evil eye again from that one girl. It didn't even matter if he lied, did it?

"Y-yes- all of them..." He winced at the shriek of delight.

"Oh my gosh I want to see her! I wanna shake her hand and-"  
"Boris! Boris is so cute do you think his fur is actually soft or maybe he doesn't have fur at all- what if it's rubbery skin yuck-"  
"Well you'll have to touch him to find out-"

"Hey!" It was Henry's turn to frown and glare. "No, you don't. You can just ask him. He's a person. They're people. You can't just go running up to them and manhandle them."

The gaggle of girls stared in surprise at the lecture before their gazes turned contemplative.

"I guess that's true," one admitted, a sheepish flush claiming her cheeks.

"We got too excited," sighed another. "We should've been more thoughtful.”

"You really are their dad," mused another, looking at him with an appreciative eye. "Like a fairytale."

"U-uh-?"

"Yeah!" She put a hand to her forehead. "Three magic creatures land in this awful, desolate world! It's so different from their own! _How_ will they survive! But then-"

"Then there's _you!"_ crowed a different girl, pointing to him with dramatic flair. 

"And so you take in the lost little toons and promise to take care of them!"

"Not sure that's going super well," said the master of the evil eye with an appraising look at Henry's worn coveralls, the motor oil stains on one arm, the old, beaten-up lunch pail dangling from one hand. He flushed.

"I-" Yes please, do remind him again how he's poor and a mess and unfit to be their guardian. He sure did need that-

A car honked and the girls turned around to find a boy waving at them from a car.

"Gotta go; we're gonna be late!" They made a mad scramble for the car, but one girl paused, turned around, dug around in her pocket, and pulled out two twenty dollar bills, shoving them into the confused animator's hand.

"For last week!" she chirped as she began to turn around. "I'd definitely come again, too!"

She waved at him as she followed her friends into their car, leaving Henry at the street light long since turned green, staring at the green in his hand.

Forty dollars. Out of the blue. Not a ton. But a nice little something, for sure.

_I'd definitely come again, too._

How many people had Bendy drawn to watch? A hundred? More? His head was spinning again.

He'd have to talk with them, of course. He'd have to make sure they felt safe enough to do it.

But if they did-

If he walked around with an open hat, and everyone threw money into it-

Oh god. They could- they could set up an official place- maybe that abandoned theater downtown-

They could charge tickets- they could invent an entire act- _multiple_ acts- music- singing, dancing-

His trembling hand closed around the money.

_They could climb out of this pit._

They really, really _could._

For the first time in a week, Henry found himself laughing, and when people stopped to stare at the laughing man on the street corner, he didn't even care.


	31. the end [Henry, Sammy, toons]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one lets on a little why this story is called Strike Up The Band, but it’s not the focus.

The summer breeze tugged at his hair, ruffling it and the leaves of the nearby plant. Henry looked up from his book at the sound of a shriek and a splash and snickered at the toons tussling in the pool, the two devils soon swimming over to try to use Boris as their barrier against each other while the wolf stood there first in confusion and then in profound unamusement.

_summer sing me a song so softly  
bring to mind things that don't come oftly  
show to me an ending that's so sweet  
that autumn i will never want to meet_

The acoustic guitar beside him plucked magic into existence with his music, his voice melding beautifully with the instrument. Sammy paused a moment to retie his hair, setting the guitar down and pulling his hair tie loose from where it was making a bid to escape and gathering his hair together with his hands, rebinding it into place, tongue out in concentration.

A shriek. Bendy and Springy had splashed Alice from their spot in the pool. Boris huffed and dunked both of them, and Twisty giggled from where he sat with his feet in the water.

Twilight touched the backyard, the gold and orange hues beginning to tinge purple. He glanced over at the smaller garden plot the whole lot of them used to raise vegetables. There should be another few harvests of tomatoes and cucumbers before the season was out. Salads for days.

Over the garden fence that sat behind those vegetables, his garden housed the last blooms of summer. The hibiscus flowers would be gone soon, as would the hydrangeas. The marigolds would be coming in, as well as the next wave of sunflowers.

Actually he had to get on plucking the dying ones out when he could, hmm.

The autumn roses would also be here soon. That was nice. Henry reached for his magic, fiddling with the feeling on his glowing pink palm- he could make the spring and summer ones bloom again, if he wanted.

But it was best he let them rest and start a new venture.

What fall crops should he think about planting? Pumpkins were a must, of course; the kids would love pumpkins; that would have to wait a bit, though. Corn was too much for that little backyard plot. Maybe radishes? No one was a big fan of those. Carrots might be a good idea.

The breeze ruffled his hair again and he became aware of eyes on him.

Green met brown, a small knot of concern in Sammy's forehead.

Henry smiled at him, reached over, and patted his hand. Sammy smiled back.

He looked out over the backyard, at the squabbling kids, Alice now in the pool beating Bendy with a pool noodle, Springy struggling to tug Twisty into the water while Boris stoutly lent his strength to stopping that.

He grinned.

Autumn could wait.

For now, there was still a few hours of summer left.

He waved a hand at his brother. _Play us out, Sammy._

Sammy's hands found the neck and strings of his guitar.

_though the days of summer wane  
they will come back in time again  
and so we face yet another end  
hand and hand with you, my friend_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s all she wrote! Thank you for another The Ink Demonth!
> 
> Thirty-one days and thirty-one prompts! How’d I do?
> 
> -each prompt must be related back to the Strike Up The Band story   
> -try to focus on each character at least once  
> -finish each prompt in twenty-four hours  
> -use this to explore post-studio story things since last year you did a lot of post-Henry/pre-Fallen Studio stuff  
> -focus on Henry a little more since he is the main character
> 
> I may have focused on him a bit too much at the end but I met every requirement this year! Next year I’ll try to distribute attention a little more evenly.
> 
> At this point I’m looking to do art for next year, but that may change depending on life situation and how do-able the prompts look for art as opposed to writing about them.
> 
> Until next year!


End file.
